A common risk attendant with sports activities is the hyperextension of joints, such as fingers, ankles, knees, etc. For example, a particular risk for a soccer goalkeeper is the hyperextension of individual fingers or the thumb. When the goalkeeper tries to deflect a ball with the extended hand, there is a risk that one or more fingers of the extended hand may be subjected to the complete impact of the ball and hyperextended. Strains, and in the worst case, fractures, are the consequence. Accordingly, specialized gloves have been developed with heavy cushioning to prevent such injuries.
A goalkeeper glove performs several functions. Apart from improving the grip on the inner side of the hand, a primary function of the glove is to protect the hand against substantial mechanical loads that occur when deflecting a sharply shot ball. In this respect, it is known to cushion the glove by damping the forces that occur during ball contact. Apart from this passive cushioning, it has also been known for several years to provide goalkeeper gloves and gloves for other sports with active reinforcing elements. Other sports where the joints are subjected to similar forces include snowboarding (where wrist injuries are common), football, skateboarding, etc.
These reinforcing elements allow a bending of the hand in a gripping direction, but block a bending of the extended hand in the opposite direction, i.e., into the direction of hyperextension. In the case of a goalkeeper glove, the extended hand, and more particularly the fingers and the thumb, are therefore actively supported by the glove when deflecting a sharply shot ball.
To obtain the desired mechanical properties, it is known to design the reinforcing element from at least two separately manufactured components. An example of such an element is shown in FIG. 7, the element indicated by reference numeral 1. A series of compression-proof bodies 2 are arranged on a completely flexible but elongation-free tension element 3 (e.g., a suitable foil, tape, or thin wire). As can be seen, the reinforcing element 1 can be easily folded into the direction of the solid arrows 4 (the first, or bending, direction), since the elongation-free foil, tape, or thin wire would not resist such a deformation. If, however, the reinforcing element 1 is extended, the compression-proof bodies 2 contact each other and prevent the reinforcing element 1 from exceeding the extended configuration into the direction of the dashed arrows 5 (the second, or hyperextension, direction).
If such a reinforcing element 1 is integrated into the backside of a glove for one or more fingers, the desired support against hyperextension is achieved by the described cooperation of the two components 2, 3. Examples of this design can be found in German Patent Nos. DE 3516545 A1, DE 19910799 C1, DE 10100848, DE 10010403 A1, and DE 10010404 A1, and in PCT Application No. WO 01/00052, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entireties. All of the disclosed reinforcing elements are made from an elongation-free tension element and a sequence of compression-proof bodies. As explicitly disclosed in those references, such a design allows a blocking action in the direction of hyperextension with a resistance-free movement in the gripping direction.
Another approach is described in German Patent No. DE 20113431 U1, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety. There, the reinforcing element comprises a plurality of hingedly connected units, with linked reinforcing elements, each having at one end a pivot and on the other end a corresponding bearing receptacle. The hinges are designed such that a rotation of two links with respect to each other is only possible in one direction. Starting from an extended configuration the sequence of links blocks any bending into the opposite direction.
Nearly all reinforcing elements for active protection against hyperextension known in the art require a complicated manufacture. In the constructions described above, the compression-proof bodies 2 attach to the tension element 3 by, for example, gluing, sewing, or guiding the tension element through openings in each individual compression-proof body 2. This process, however, is difficult to automate, thereby increasing the costs associated with such devices.
The same applies to the reinforcing elements made from a plurality of hingedly connected links, which must be separately manufactured and subsequently connected to each other. Since up to ten reinforcing elements may be required for a complete protection of the hand, this leads to substantial manufacturing efforts. Furthermore, the manual assembly of the reinforcing elements requires an exact quality control (for example, to verify whether the compression-proof bodies 2 are reliably anchored to the tension element 3 or whether all links have been correctly connected to each other). As a consequence of the related costs, gloves with active protection against hyperextension can until now only be found in the highest price segment and, therefore, are only usually purchased by professional or semi-professional users.
This is unfortunate, since the risk of sprains and fractures is particularly high with children, teenagers, and other non-professionals, not just in soccer, but in other sports as well. Goalkeeper gloves for these users, however, have until now not been equipped with active reinforcing elements for protection against hyperextension, simply because it is not economically feasible to incorporate into such gloves an expensive reinforcing element. In addition, the known constructions require a certain minimum size for reliable operation.
There have been attempts to avoid the complex manufacturing and assembly process accompanying multi-piece reinforcing elements by utilizing single-piece construction. One such attempt is disclosed in German Patent No. DE 297 05 586 U1, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference it its entirety, where a plurality of slits extend partially through a single piece of material, thereby forming a reinforcing element with thicker sections separated by thinner sections (located at the slits). The slits allow the reinforcing element to bend in a first direction and still provide a blocking interaction when the element is bent into a second direction.
Since the thicker portions of the reinforcing element are more resistant to bending, however, the bending in the first direction would be concentrated at locations where the material is thinnest (i.e., at the slits). This would limit the flexibility of the reinforcing element disclosed in the above-referenced German patent. As a result, the element may cause discomfort to the fingers and/or joints of the wearer, for example, when throwing or catching a ball, or when punching at a ball to deflect a shot. This would be particularly likely if the bending locations do not correspond exactly with the wearer's joints. Additionally, the concentration of bending forces may cause the element to weaken at those points of bending more quickly. This weakening would ultimately lead to premature failure and require replacement of the entire reinforcing element.
There is, therefore, a need to provide a reinforcing element for active protection against hyperextension that can be more easily and inexpensively manufactured than known constructions, but without weakening prematurely, and that can also be used for smaller glove sizes. Additionally, there is a need to provide a reinforcing element that can be used in a variety of sports equipment, to prevent injuries to joints, such as ankles, wrists, knees, the neck, etc.